Angelina Jolie Confirms a Key Maleficent Scene Was About Rape

Maleficent is a worldwide, all-ages hit, drawing children and adults alike to a story crammed with fairies, sword fights, and the healing power of magic. It is also, at least in part, about rape.

Many grown-ups who have seen the film already suspected as much from the scene in which Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent is violated by Sharlto Copley’s King Stefan, a man she trusted. He drugs her and cuts off her massive wings. Now Jolie has confirmed that the scene deliberately echoes the too-familiar beats of the date-rape narrative. “We were very conscious, the writer [Linda Woolverton] and I, that it was a metaphor for rape,” Jolie said during an interview with BBC Woman’s Hour. Jolie had spoken forcefully at the Global Summit to End Sexual Violence in Conflict, on Tuesday, demanding an end to rape as a tool of war. “It is a myth that rape is an inevitable part of conflict,” she said at the Summit. “There is nothing inevitable about it.”

It’s not hard to imagine a similarly impassioned speech about rape as used in Hollywood narratives, where it is more often used as a plot device to spur the hero into action than any thoughtful consideration of the meaning of the crime. Maleficent may have muddled messages—the fact that Maleficent’s entire motivation as a villain is rejection by a man is not a great feminist message—but it takes the metaphorical rape scene seriously, in no small part thanks to Jolie’s committed performance. And it’s not the first time her interest in this cause has come through on film—her directorial debut, In the Land of Blood and Honey, included multiple frank depictions of rape committed by soldiers against civilian women during the Bosnian War. The war in Maleficent may involve enchanted thorn forests and a magical kiss, but Jolie is taking it seriously as a way to spread awareness of an issue she cares about deeply. It’s one thing to speak in front of global dignitaries about the need to combat rape; it’s quite another to slip that message into a global blockbuster.